


The Only Way Forward

by dixiehellcat



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame, BAMF Pepper Potts, F/M, Gen, THAT DAMNED TRAILER, capitalization intentional, hang in there fam, major spoilers for Avengers Endgame, somebody Rescue Tony, there are no happy endings only hopeful ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 18:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16897692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: What spilled out of my mouth and onto tumblr upon first seeing the trailer for Avengers: Endgame (which title, HA, I called it, despite being the noobiest noob that ever noobed). It elicited several requests to write a fuller treatment, so, here you go.Tony's message is received and Pepper and Carol lead the rescue party.





	The Only Way Forward

Pepper put the car in park and closed her eyes for a long moment. The past weeks had been a nightmare beyond her power to imagine. Half the population of earth, simply gone in the blink of an eye. 

Happy gone.

Young Peter gone. She had spent hours on the phone with May Parker; they understood each other, as much as was possible. May’s nephew hadn’t even made it home from school that day.

Tony…gone. Had to be gone. It tore at her that she didn’t even know how he had died, but she knew he must have. If he weren’t, he would have found a way to stop this; she knew it to the depths of her soul.

The other original Avengers, except Barton, had survived, and come back to the compound. She had hesitated at first, but Rhodey, bless him, had been right. “Pep, what’s going on here is bigger than anything else, bigger than any differences or lies in our pasts. The only chance we have to find a way through, to make this whole, is to stick together. Tony would—“ Rhodey’s voice had broken then, and they had held each other for several minutes before he could continue. “Tony would have done this, you know he would’ve.”

Pepper had nodded, and wiped Rhodey’s tears, and her own. She had put him in charge at the compound, and gone back to running what was left of Stark Industries. It was Tony’s legacy, all she had left of him, and she would be damned if she would let his memory down.

And then, this morning, the phone call from Bruce, and the words she had only heard in her dreams. “Pep, we need you up here. We—we may have a lead on Tony, but we need your help.”

She had broken every speed limit—not that it mattered, there were so few vehicles on the roads anymore, and even fewer police to pull any of them over. The world had not descended into chaos, not yet, but she could feel it, poised on the edge of a knife’s blade.

With a deep breath, she got out of the car and looked up at the compound main building, at the Avengers logo that once had made Tony so proud. She pressed her lips together tightly, refusing to yield to grief. If Bruce thought there was a chance, however slim, then there was. She trusted his judgement, as Tony had.

The front door opened as she approached. Natasha stood, her spy’s eyes looking Pepper over. “Hi, Pepper.”

“Hey, Natasha.” Even the assassin’s cool was fractured. She reached out and they embraced. “What’s going on? Bruce said you’d found something.”

“He found something. Come on, Steve’s getting the others together, so Bruce doesn’t have to explain more than once.” Arms around each other, they went to the main conference room. Pepper had met with the team once since their return, in this room, where they had explained the whole mess: Thanos’ fixation on population control in the worst (and least logical) possible way, the battle in Wakanda to keep the last of the Infinity Stones from him, the defeat, and then, the catastrophe. The media called it the Decimation, but that was wrong; it was far worse than one in ten lost, it was one in two, and the others left with barely enough heart and will some days to get out of bed and keep going.

Thor stood from the table as they entered. “Lady Virginia,” he greeted her with a sober look and a clasp of her hand. He had always been so bright and upbeat, but now, his light was dimmed like the rest. 

Rhodey came in and hugged her tightly. With him was a stranger, a blonde woman in fatigues who introduced herself as Captain Carol Danvers. Pepper did not miss the way Rhodey’s hand curved around her back, or the sideways looks they exchanged, and she made a mental note to pump him for an explanation, later. It would be nice to think about something pleasant, for a few minutes.

Bruce and Steve came in then. Steve was still tense around Pepper, so she stepped forward and took his hand. “Hey, Steve. Thank you for calling me. What’s up?”

“We got a signal,” Bruce burst out. “A Morse code SOS on a repeating loop.”

“I’m…part Kree,” Carol Danvers cautiously offered, “a spacefaring humanoid race, but we don’t use Morse code. I don’t know of any planet other than Earth that does, and since Earth-built ships haven’t gotten past their moon yet, the originators of this signal are limited to a human on another race’s craft.”

“Plus it’s on a proprietary wavelength that only Tony’s gear uses,” Bruce finished.

The combined weight of the words hit Pepper like a medicine ball to the gut. “Then it’s got to be—” _Tony. He’s alive, out there, someplace._ “Why do you need me here then? Why aren’t you—oh. No spacecraft here can make it that far…but still, I can’t do anything—”

“Yeah, yeah you can,” Bruce replied urgently. “We got another signal, a little while ago, with a file attached. It was locked, and tagged for your access only.”

Steve had stepped out of the room, but returned, holding one of Tony’s helmets. The sight made Pepper’s heart clench. She willed her hands not to shake when she reached out and took it from him. She had done this before, standing on the cliffs overlooking Point Dume, when she had thought Tony was gone, into the Pacific with what was left of his house; she had found a helmet, put it on, and been transported from anguish to joyful hope in seconds. It was too much to wish for, maybe, with everybody on earth grieving, but she did anyway, just before she sat down and set the helmet on her head. 

It buzzed and hummed, and announced its recognition of her. And then—then that voice. “This thing on?...Hey Miss Potts.” Pepper gasped, and clenched her fists on the edge of the conference table. “If you get this recording, don’t feel bad about it. Part of the journey is the end…” Tony sounded so tired, but she knew his every tone; he was fighting to keep it together, to stay positive, the way he always did. “Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds…food and water ran out four days ago, oxygen will run out tomorrow morning, and that’ll be it…” His breaths were shallow, almost panting. “When I drift off, I will dream about you. It’s always you.”

Pepper barely registered tearing the helmet off, dropping it, and folding forward until her face nearly hit the table top, sobbing so hard she thought she would black out from lack of air, the way Tony was—had been—was right now, maybe? Hands touched her, and bodies surrounded her, pressing in from all sides. When she glanced up, all the Avengers were embracing her and each other, every face bearing the same expression of dread. She fought her way back from the brink. She could not give in now, not if there was the slightest chance of seeing Tony again. She sat up. “When did this come in?” she asked, proud of herself for being able to put words together.

“A couple of hours ago,” Bruce said. “I called you as soon as I scanned the encryption.”

“And how long…”

“That I don’t know,” Bruce shook his head. “The signals are faint, but coming from within a few light-hours of Earth, so probably no longer than that.” 

Hope hurt almost as much as despair had. Quickly, Pepper explained the message. “If this ship is drifting no farther out than that, h-he may still be alive.”

The looks being exchanged didn’t look as optimistic as Pepper had expected. “I can summon Kree ships,” Carol said, “and they could be here within hours; their hyperdrives are the best. But even a radius of light-hours from Earth is a pretty big area to search. They may not find him in time. This proprietary wavelength—their comm systems wouldn’t be able to pick it up. Modifying them to do so would take too long, and every system would need your personal biometrics to authorize and set it up.”

“I can’t even do it, Pep,” Rhodey put in. “Tony’s got this channel coded to only recognize him and you. From what you say, he’ll need oxygen and provisions and probably medical care, so a ship will have to get to him, but first—”

“They have to locate him,” Pepper finished. “And for that we need—” She pushed back from the table. The people around her backed up. She knew what was needed. They thought they did, but they didn’t. It was a secret, something only Tony and she had shared for years. “I’ll be right back.”

The expressions when she returned a few minutes later were priceless. “FRIDAY,” she said with a lightness in her chest she had not felt in far too long, “are you recording this? Because Tony is definitely going to want to see these faces when he gets home.”

“Absolutely, Miss Potts.”

Rhodey’s jaw was almost on the floor. “Tony…made you a suit.”

“Mm-hm.” 

Steve’s eyes were enormous. Bruce and Thor almost laughed out loud, and Natasha’s mouth twitched in a little half-smile. “You don’t look surprised,” Pepper said to her.

“Nothing Tony does surprises me anymore, really,” the Black Widow returned.

With a small nod, Pepper turned to Carol. “Where are your friends and their ship? Let’s get this show on the road.”

Carol tapped a few buttons on her wrist, then looked the suit over with real respect. “Nice gear. Got a call sign?”

Pepper finally managed a smile. “Tony calls it Rescue.”

+++

The day she threatened to pepper spray an officious Stark Industries security guard for trying to remove her from Tony Stark’s office, Virginia Potts could never have dreamed she would end up like this: standing in an alien spaceship, wearing bleeding edge armor, tracking the love of her life across the cosmos. _Goes to show you never can tell_ , she thought. 

The HUD in her helmet kept a steady readout passing before her eyes every few minutes when she lowered the faceplate. The Morse code message was still beeping out, faintly; that, Carol had said, was probably intentional, to stretch out its power source as long as possible. Even thinking he was about to die, Tony apparently still had hope, that at least his body might one day be found and returned home. Pepper forced those thoughts away. _NO. He’s alive, and I’m going to find him and bring him home safe._

She gazed around the cabin, at the Avengers who had refused to be left behind. Rhodey was suited up too; though War Machine was not built for the vacuum of space, its enhanced strength would speed the process of taking whatever craft Tony was on in tow. Steve paced, as he often did when waiting for things to happen. When this was over, Pepper hoped he and Tony could make peace. Natasha sat, outwardly calm, but the tapping of her nails on the nearest bulkhead betrayed her true inner state.

Bruce had stayed behind to work in the compound lab and monitor their communications; the Hulk had not been seen since his return to Earth with the word of Thanos’ approach. Pepper tried not to think about that day, and yet she could not stop; it was the last time she had seen Tony, stepping through a magical portal with Bruce and a wizard named Strange, answering the call as he always had. Thor was with him, standing a lonely rear guard.

The ship was close, now, and Pepper stepped toward the nearby hatch. She and Carol had decided to fly ahead, once near enough, for fear the signal might give out. Once they locked in on Tony’s ship, the Kree could easily follow them there and link their vessel to it. She looked her companion over, dressed in a sturdy close-fitting combat suit and a helmet with, of all things, a crest that looked like a mohawk haircut. “Stylish,” she said, and wondered at herself for suddenly finding the ability to tease, just a little. Hope hurt, but hope warmed too.

Carol shrugged. “Gets the job done,” she grinned. “Let’s go get your fella.”

The hatch opened into the airlock, and moments later both women were plunging through the void. Tony had made Pepper practice with Rescue every few weeks at a minimum, and, as fearful as space made him, he had even taken her out past the upper atmosphere a few times. The handling was different without air to work around, but the moves came back to her quickly.

Then the HUD pinged with a visual—a ship, roughly bird-shaped, floating ahead, and from it came the signal they had been following like bread crumbs. “That’s it,” she said, and shot off toward it. They swooped around the strangely lovely craft and looked for a way in; after a moment, Carol pointed and swept in to hover near a sealed hatchway. A small burst of energy from the half-human woman’s outstretched hand popped it open. They slid inside and another burst sealed it shut behind them, so they could access the main body of the ship without the vacuum of space destroying anything, or anyone, inside. 

A part of Pepper was all for blowing the thing open and rushing inside, but she schooled herself to calm while Carol worked the inner access. it felt like an eternity before it yielded and they stepped into a dark space. The helmet display began busily reading its new environment: temperature low but livable; oxygen 8 percent, barely enough to sustain human lungs; and—

One living being registering on the scan. Almost before she realized it, Pepper was moving, running through the silent ship, Carol beside her. 

He lay sprawled near a window, the fearsome expanse of stars spread like the most perfect artwork beyond the glass, his face turned toward it as though its beauty drew him despite his fear. At his feet lay a battered, half-wrecked Iron Man helmet. The last feeble beeps of Morse code issued from it as Pepper dropped to her knees beside Tony’s form, lying so still. _Too still, he’s never still, even when we’re in bed asleep, he’s always moving, shifting. Wiggling his butt back into me to get me to turn over and put my arms around him. God, please, please be okay, Tony. I want to hold you for the rest of my life!_

He was thin, his pulse fast and thready and his breaths brief gasps too far apart. Pepper retracted her gauntlets and put her hands on him; yes, the stats were in front of her face, but to touch him, to feel the warmth of his body, made her gasp and choke on hope. 

Vaguely, she registered Carol behind her talking to her ship, but that didn’t matter right now. Pepper’s entire existence was narrowed to this man in front of her. This was what Rescue was built to do. She popped her faceplate up and made a face at the staleness of the air. She could handle it for the few minutes more it would take the Kree to arrive and hook up a safe passage from here; but she didn’t intend for Tony to have to wait another minute. From a panel on the suit, she unspooled a nasal cannula tube, snapped it taut to start the flow of fresh oxygen from the built-in concentrator, and gently slipped it on him. His skin was dry and tight. She brushed her thumbs along his cheekbones, avoiding the unhealed cuts and bruises. “Tony?” she said, hating the tremor in her voice. She had to stay strong for him. “Tony, honey, wake up.”

One hand on his face, Pepper picked up his hand with the other. It was battered and banged up, and she could envision him fighting with the alien technology of this vessel, trying to keep it livable for as long as he could. She pressed her lips to his fingertips, thinking of those clever hands and what they did, what they did to her. 

A tear slipped free. She sniffled angrily, and then caught her breath when the fingers twitched against her now damp cheek. With painful slowness, Tony’s head turned toward her. His lashes fluttered, then rose. Behind them, the brown eyes she loved so much were glassy. The corners of his eyes crinkled, as he frowned a bit, struggling to focus. She could see the instant that he did. “Pep?” he croaked. 

It felt so strange to smile broadly for the first time in what seemed a lifetime. “Yeah. I’m here, Tony.”

He stared, dazed, for a moment, and then startled her when his face crumpled. His eyes screwed shut and his body began to jerk. Suddenly fearful, Pepper flipped her visor down to check his vitals, but they were decent and steadily improving. She flicked it back up, needing her own eyes on him. His free hand wrapped weakly around her wrist and his cheek pressed against her palm. “No, no, no,” he kept repeating, barely voicing enough to hear. 

“Tony, what’s wrong? Are you in pain? Are you hurt?”

Abruptly, his eyes opened again and locked with hers. “I’m dead, right?” he breathed, his face twisted in agony. “And—you’re here so you’re—oh fuck, I really blew it, didn’t I, I hoped at least you’d be okay but I couldn’t even save you—” He shuddered again, and Pepper realized in horror what was happening; he was trying to cry, but he was so dehydrated, his body had no moisture to spare for tears.

“No! Oh, baby, no. Look at me, Tony. You’re alive. I’m alive. It’s gonna be okay.” She pulled his trembling body into her arms and held him close, rocking back and forth where she knelt on the cold hard metal. “I’ve got you,” she whispered over and over. Her hand trailed through his grimy hair, and she had never felt anything so soft or wonderful in all of her life. 

“At least I’m hallucinatin’ you in the suit,” he murmured after a minute. “Never saw you any more beautiful than that first time you flew in it, or the way you came at me after you took it off…dreamed about that since the day the Mandarin came at us…”

She remembered it, the wild unexpected rush of her first flight, and the wild abandon of their lovemaking afterwards. “Horny is just your default setting, isn’t it?” she teased gently.

“Only with you,” he mumbled, his face against her armored shoulder. She couldn’t wait to get off this damn ship and out of this suit, so she could feel him, really feel his body against hers; somehow, she wasn’t going to be completely sure this was really happening until then. “’S always…always you…”

“Pepper?” Carol called. “We’re ready!”

The other woman started over to help her. “I’ve got him,” Pepper told her. The enhanced strength of the Rescue suit let her scoop Tony up and stand, cradling him in her arms like a child. _He feels so light_ , she thought and swallowed back a sob. She had to believe what she had told him; it was going to be okay. 

The slight jostling brought Tony briefly out of his stupor, and he peered over at Carol, taking in her suit and helm. “Huh,” he said. “M’ brain’s even weirder than I thought. Hi there, high fade.”

Carol’s businesslike demeanor cracked into a chuckle. “Hi yourself. Introductions can wait, let’s get you off here.”

The oxygen on the derelict ship was almost gone. Pepper’s heart was pounding and her ears began to ring. She fairly dashed through the airlock that now opened into the Kree vessel, and stopped, knees aquiver, to suck in some deep welcome breaths of good air. Natasha and Steve started toward her, but Rhodey got there first. He reached to take Tony, but Pepper shook her head; she couldn’t bear to let go of him. 

The Kree were human enough that she could read the emotions in their faces as she walked past them: surprise, sympathy, satisfaction at a job well done. One directed her to a berth at the back of the ship, and she settled her longed-for load there and rewound the oxygen tube before unsuiting. Rhodey dropped beside Tony, while Pepper intercepted the two Avengers who had followed at the door of the small cabin. “Not now, please. Let him recover first.” 

Steve opened his mouth as though to argue, but Natasha said, “Absolutely. We…just wanted to see him, to see that he’s alive. Call us if we can do anything.” With that, she hauled Steve back down the passageway.

From behind her, Pepper heard Tony weakly say, “Platypus?” She turned to see him clutching at the sleeve of Rhodey’s undersuit. “Are—are you dead too, damn, not you too…”

“Nope! Take more than a giant eggplant to do me in, Tones. Or you, apparently.”

Tony’s eyes were wild, and he started to babble about aliens, and a wizard (the one he had left with, Pepper supposed) trading a stone for his life, and— _did he say Peter?_ She shoved that and the thousand other questions she had to the side, and sat down on the other side of the narrow berth and wrapped her arms around the worn body of the man she loved. “Shh,” she soothed him. “That can wait.”

He twisted in her embrace. “You’re real,” he said. “You’re real?”

She nodded, and her heart swelled at the hint of that old spark kindling in those wonderful honeyed eyes, as disbelief and despair gave way to awareness. “I told you, it’s gonna be okay.”

It took only a slight lean forward for Pepper’s lips to meet his and her joy to be complete, for this moment at any rate. “Gonna take a lot of work to make things okay,” Tony breathed when they parted. “I don’t know that I’m up for it.”

“You don’t have to right now.” Pepper rested her forehead against his, reveling in everything about him. Even the smelly unwashed scent of him sang to her senses: _alive, alive._

Carol came in just then with two Kree medics, and Pepper let go of Tony long enough for them to start an IV. Tony stayed alert long enough to watch Carol and Rhodey touch and exchange a very meaningful glance. When he looked over at Pepper with an inquisitive eyebrow raised, she shrugged. ‘I don’t know either,” she whispered. “We’ll both have to find out, later.”

“Mm,” Tony agreed with a small, soft smile up at her. By the time she sat back down on the edge of the bunk and his hand found hers, he was asleep. As the Kree ship raced back to Earth, Pepper thought that, despite all that awaited them there, the universe had a much better chance now that Tony Stark was still in it.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, we know Clint survived, but Pepper wouldn't know that at this point, I think.
> 
> Rumor has it that Happy survived too, but reports are inconsistent, so I went with the previously prevalent assumption to the contrary.
> 
> As the noobiest noob who ever noobed, and not having read much of the comics, there's mucho hand-wavy stuff in here, especially as regards to the Rescue armor and its potential capabilities. Forgive me, it took a few thousand words to get to the origination of this piece, the moment when a semi-conscious Tony sees Pepper, assumes he is dead, and since he's seeing her, so is she; he failed even at the simple task of keeping her safe. (sobs, shuffles off in search of more tissues)
> 
> ETA, people have asked where Nebula is, since she is in the trailer. Honestly, I didn't catch her the first time watching, and this was written immediately after that in a white-hot rush of emotion. So...
> 
> My headcanon, at least for this story, is that Tony raised cain and insisted she take the single remaining escape pod and go after Thanos. There was an exchange where she swore she would avenge Tony, and he naturally dubbed her an Avenger, the same way he did Peter, and then thinking of that made him break down, and when he finally cried out the last of his tears and drifted into a doze, Nebula touched him, said her goodbye and left.
> 
> Ouch, sorry y'all.


End file.
